Using the Composite Feature to Take Control of Effects

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Hi folks,

Latest tutorial video and article called 'Using the Composite Feature to Take Control of Effects' ready to view:

My blog link:

http://www.smartphotoeditor.com/AndrewBuchanan/?p=273

Vimeo link:

http://vimeo.com/109495340

Hope you find this useful.

Kind regards,

Andrew

[Arwin Profile]

Very interesting approuch of using the composite feature, inspiring!
Always somewhat amazed by seeing the versatility of smart photo editor, it's always crossing boundaries, approaches and possibilities, really great to see!

Your blog looks awesome with the new theme, good choice!

Keep up the good work Andrew, really appreciated!

Kind regards,
Arwin

[DennB Profile]

Give that man a prize!!! Great work!!!

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Thanks for your comments and encouragement Arwin & DennB - much appreciated - look forward to anything you guys come up with using this approach!

Cheers,

Andrew

[eadams Profile]

Hi Andrew,

This is an excellent tutorial (as always!) and it has given me new ideas to try out. It does highlight my main problem with SPE: deciding which of the many stunning results I can achieve with SPE should be the final result

Eve

[Phelon Profile]

Hi Andrew,

Just reviewed your remarkable tutorial on using the composite feature--excellent job my young man; hope this tutorial finds it's way to the front page of SPE with other tutorials. Perhaps SPE would be better to add tutorials like this to a front-page Advanced Tutorial list; then it or any others would always be easy to find.

Great work, Andrew!!!

Eve mentioned about the fact of finding which effect to use of the thousands that have been made available, especially by you and Arvin. That truly is a problem I'm having, too. Eve especially brings out the quandary of searching for effects in the "Feature Requests" Forum. Plus, she makes requests for similar and related features there. I believe SPE needs to help us all out by figuring a way to visually see quickly the many effects. If only these many effects that have been created, which are beautiful, could be displayed quickly. I printed out six line-item pages of just your several thousand effects, but so far, it does me no good, since I have no visual idea of what they look like--the system now seem OK, but you have to go through hundreds of pages--very time consuming.
I hope you can put your great mind to this searching problem, Andrew. Perhaps the category names can be expanded--I think about it, then I get lost for an answer. I don't think I have another program that has as many effects as SPE. I just thought of one idea: how about condensing the effects, especially yours and Arvins, where there are several of similar design to just one effect, and somehow program that one effect to open an expansion window showing others that look similar but different color, etc.?

Thank you for all your great contributions, Andrew; I really appreciate your great talent and desire to help others.

As always, my dear friend, keep smiling, working hard, and look forward to more of your work.

Phelon

[Arwin Profile]

Hi Phelon,

I agree that the manual effect search ability of SPE can be do much better than is does right now but this is something that is talkt about very often and since there is nothing changed I guess it's difficult to integrate a better search solution at this time and stage of the SPE version.

Still there is something you could try to see if there are more 'presets' of the effect you like (maybe you are already aware of it, but others maybe not)

If there are more versions of an effect (presets) Andrew and I (as I know of) are generating effectnames that you could search as category, for instance; if you like the effect Bittbox - grungy watercolor 01, you can search for Bittbox - grungy watercolor to see multiple equal effects in this category and if you search for Bittbox you will see all Bittbox effects.

So I would suggest to search for the first parts of an effectname to see if there are more variations of the same effect

Hope it helped you (and/or others) a bit

Cheers,
Arwin

[Phelon Profile]

Hi Arwin,

Thanks for the suggestion, and it is worthwhile; however, in thinking about it (for me and everyone else using the effects) let me run through what goes thru my thoughts on using this procedure (which I would say is very logical). Without exactly counting the total number of effects in SPE, I'm guessing there are several thousand effects from all contributors; now just from Andrew, they are over 2000. You also have a lot of contributed effects, but in just starting and working with Andrew's effects, let's say there are 20 variations of each category (that's pretty high, but just use that number. That would mean 100 categories or more (and just for Andrew) and remember there would be 20 variations in each category. Remember these effects were all lovingly made, are beautiful and very worthwhile using--so one doesn't want to delete any of these.

With that visualization of the great number of effects, plus tons more from you and others, your suggestion (see your post above) will work, but for me, and probably for others, it's a tremendous amount of work to categorize 2000 effects into 100 categories. Then there are all the other effects to go through. It should be a visualization process to use the effects--i.e. I and others don't know what BITTBOX effects are by name, but seeing them would be the answer. If I don'r see, I may miss out on using a category that might be just perfect. I believe a lot of people will walk away from this maneuvering. If Andrew and you (and other large category contributors) could take the time to put an image of the category effect on the categories subject line (or whatever it takes), it would help a great deal. As Andrew shows in his latest tutorial, using the Blending, and other tools, can make even more endless variations. I do this all the time with textures and effects in other programs, PS CC, DxO, onOne Suite, LightRoom; that gives me matching colors and endless possibilities.

Both you and Andrew are great artists and really contribute a lot. I hope this effect process will be made easier.

Warm regards, Arvin. Nice to see you back. You are a great contributor.

Phelon

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Thanks Eve for your encouragement & kind comments.

Eve, Phelon & Arwin,

Nice to hear the debate about the Effects Gallery 'search' function. I used to be quite concerned of how difficult it can be sometimes to find particular effects and particular effect types, and, like you, wished for a more sophisticated search function. Perhaps because I've long since retired I've regressed into a second childhood and I like to PLAY. I rarely bother trying to find particular effects now (although experience directs me to effects I like) and simply type in the search box the names of authors I admire and randomly search their effects - or for that matter my own effects. I agree it would be TEDIOUS to go through the Gallery page-by-page, so I don't do that - in keeping with my randomised approach I simply JUMP through the speed page search function as shown:

ScreenClip.jpg (140.43 KiB) Viewed 8244 times

This throws up many 'happy surprises' and keeps things fresh - since I like creating a wide variety of results and I'm always experimenting, I find this way of working suits my needs and is not tedious, but FUN! If I want to repeat the same process I will save a 'SESSION' file under a suitable name that will allow me to access it when I want. In a sense, it depends on your 'mindset' whether this approach works for you. I'm not really purist in any way - I sort of 'Freewheel' and rarely make judgements as to whether and image is good, bad or indifferent until I have generated lots of variations. Once I've a number of variations I sift though them and select ones that appeal to me (at least at that point in time) and then erase all the other variations. I constantly delete images in order to keep the creative juices flowing. The process often means more to me than the finished results.

I indicated quite a while ago that I thought I would stop making effects in order to let others take up the task - now a few users have done this (and some notable examples too such as Arwin & Texan), but I missed making them so decided to continue. I would be happy to hear from you regarding the question of whether I should continue submitting effects to the Gallery or whether it is time for me to STOP! I'm happy to do either!

I don't know whether my comments make much sense to you, but it is the way that works for me.

Kind regards and thanks again to all contributors.

Andrew

[eadams Profile]

Hi Andrew,

If creating effects for the Effects Gallery is not a burden to you, and you still find pleasure in doing it, please continue!!!

Although I would really like to be able to find certain effects more easily, I also like to just skip around the gallery and experiment with effects that don't show up on the first few pages. SPE does a pretty good job of presenting effects on the first few pages that look good on the loaded image, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. An effect that looks terrible on one image can look stunning on another one, so it really pays to experiment and not try to keep re-using the same old effects.

Looking forward to some new "gems"

Eve